Two Thousand Promises (Kings of Chaos #5)

12. Huli

Chapter 12

Huli

1272 CE

Luoyang, near Zhang manor

H uli paced the orchard, tails flicking behind him. This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

After everything he’d gone through already…

The pain. The heartbreak and worry that came with spending so many years away from Xiao Dan.

All of that, and he still couldn’t shift into a human. It wasn’t fair. He had five tails now. The same number of tails Min possessed when she appeared before him as a human. Why couldn’t he do this?

He was just as smart as she was. Just as strong. He’d even gotten his fifth tails six whole months earlier than she had.

Why couldn’t he do this?

He stopped pacing between the barren plum trees and tensed every muscle in his body. He grunted and pushed, trying to force magic throughout his frame, demanding it change into a human. It didn’t matter if he became a man or a woman. That part could be changed later. He’d make himself into something Xiao Dan could love.

“Huli? Is that you?” Xiao Dan’s voice rang out across the orchard.

The fox released the breath he was holding and relaxed again. He collapsed onto the ground, flattening himself into a fox rug.

He couldn’t do it.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so hasty to part ways with Min. Once he’d learned all her cultivation tricks, he’d left her behind, confident that he could figure out the human shifting bit on his own.

Wrong.

“Huli?”

“I’m here,” he said, lifting one of his orange tails so Xiao Dan could easily see him over the mounds of snow that had fallen earlier in the day.

Xiao Dan’s crunching footsteps grew louder as he approached. Huli had returned to Luoyang three nights ago and had been toying with the idea of staying for a full year or even more before continuing with his training. Five tails were nice, but they weren’t nine. He wanted to be a true jiuweihu.

Unfortunately, with his shifting failure, it was clear that he wasn’t ready to take a lengthy break yet.

“Are you okay?” Xiao Dan kneeled in the snow beside him and lightly touched the top of his head. The gentle stroking helped to soothe away some of his frustration, but he didn’t want to be soothed. He wanted to be human.

“I’m okay,” he mumbled.

“No, you’re not. My happy, silly fox would be in my lap, licking my face and begging for cuddles. What’s wrong?” Xiao Dan scratched him behind one ear and Huli jerked away to leap to his feet.

“I don’t want to be your happy, silly fox,” he snapped.

He paced away from Xiao Dan, his tails whipping behind him. The air crackled with magic, which usually made him happy, but this time, it only pissed him off. All this magic and he couldn’t change into a human.

“Forgive me, Huli. I…didn’t realize,” Xiao Dan whispered. Huli turned to find the vampire’s head was low and his shoulders were drooping. Did he think Huli meant…

“No!” Huli rushed to Xiao Dan’s side, bumped his head into the vampire’s chest, and attempted to climb into his lap. “Huli will always be Xiao Dan’s fox.” When Xiao Dan still didn’t move, Huli wrapped all five of his tails around the vampire, cocooning them as best he could. “Always your fox.”

“But you said…”

Huli heaved a sigh and pressed his face into Xiao Dan’s neck. “I want to be more than a fox.”

“You are. You’re a magnificent huli jing with five glorious tails. That’s amazing. You have so much to be proud of.”

Huli closed his eyes and swallowed against the lump that had formed in his throat. Xiao Dan always had such kind, supportive words for him. He didn’t deserve this human’s sweet devotion.

“But with five tails, I should be able to shift into a human.”

“What?” Xiao Dan stiffened at his words. Huli pulled away so he could sit in the snow and see his expression.

His Zhang-ge looked like a young god, with the snow glistening in the moonlight. His long dark hair tumbled over his shoulders and Huli ached for fingers so he could at last touch it.

“You want to be human? Can huli jing really do that? You mentioned it once years ago, but I thought…I didn’t believe you to be serious.”

“Of course we can do it! There are all kinds of stories about huli jing taking human form.”

“Yes, but in most of those stories, the huli jing do that to trick unsuspecting humans and hurt them.”

Huli pouted, flicking some snow with one tail. “We can shift for other reasons.”

“What would be your reason? Do you plan to trick me?” There was a playful note in Xiao Dan’s voice, but to Huli, this was serious business.

“I want to be human, so you’ll love me.”

Xiao Dan blinked, and his lips parted, but no sound came out. Huli continued to meet his blank stare, fighting the urge to fidget under his continued silence. This was not going as well as he might have hoped.

The vampire blinked two more times before he spoke. “But I already love you.”

A dismissive noise erupted from Huli’s throat, and he flopped down on his stomach, his ears flattened in his irritation. “As a pet. I don’t want to be loved as a pet or some silly amusement.”

“Huli, you are my greatest and closest friend.”

Xiao Dan’s softly spoken words made Huli’s heart skip. His ears perked up as he gazed at Xiao Dan out of the corner of his eye to find his sweet Zhang-ge smiling at him.

“What about Chen?”

“I am close friends with Chen. He is also my shidi.? 1 Yet, since our shifu’s death, he has looked to me for strength and relies on me for answers when the clan is feeling lost. Because of that, I don’t feel like I can share my fears and doubts with him. I don’t wish to burden him and shake his confidence in me.”

Huli’s head lifted. “But you can with me.”

“I can. With you, I feel like I can be my truest self. I’m not afraid or worried about how you’ll judge me. There’s no fear of disappointing you.”

The fox rolled onto his back while resting his head in Xiao Dan’s lap. “Because Gege will never let me down. Zhang Xiao Dan is perfect in every way.”

“Not even close, but I love your confidence in me,” Xiao Dan said with a chuckle. He tapped a finger on the tip of Huli’s nose.

“I want you to love me the way two humans love each other. I want to kiss you.”

“Oh…” Xiao Dan exhaled heavily. “Huli, that’s…complicated.”

“Why? I just need to be a human that you find attractive. Tell Huli what kind of human you find appealing, and that’s what I will be.”

A choking noise broke from Xiao Dan’s throat, and he gasped for air. “Huli, I can’t tell you something like that. Your appearance should be what you choose and what makes you happy.”

Huli thought about it for a second and shook his head. “Nah. My human outside is only for Zhang-ge. The inside is for Huli. That I will never change because you already love my inside.”

“That’s true,” Xiao Dan said, even as he pressed his fingers into his forehead and rubbed. “It’s that things like attraction, physical love, and even romantic love are complicated.”

Huli popped up. “Yes, that! I want all of that with you. And we can have it once I figure out how to turn into a human.”

“Sometimes, the human heart doesn’t work that way.”

“Why?”

Xiao Dan’s sigh was long and loud. “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know why some people are attracted to each other and some are not. Maybe love and attraction are nothing more than a type of fickle magic that I have no hope of mastering. I worry that I might not be able to love you like you want me to, and I will lose my greatest friend.”

“No, that is not possible,” Huli declared. “I will always be Xiao Dan’s friend.”

Of course, Huli also believed that Xiao Dan was worrying too much. Since he loved Huli as a friend, it would be only natural for Xiao Dan to fall in love with him as a human. The vampire was overthinking things. A bad human habit.

They sat in comfortable silence for several minutes. Huli replayed in his head all the steps and tricks he’d used to turn into a human, while trying to think of new options. Was this something he could do piece by piece in the beginning? A hand. A foot. A nose. Or did he have to know what his human form looked like from top to bottom so he could change all of him at once?

He didn’t know how much time ticked by before Xiao Dan’s voice broke through his meandering thoughts. “Huli, can I give you something?”

The fox perked up, thoughts of shifting forgotten. “A present? Zhang-ge has a present for his Huli?” He lunged at Xiao Dan, sniffing him everywhere, which was unnecessary considering he would have smelled the food on Xiao Dan as soon as he’d entered the plum orchard. Food was what Xiao Dan always brought as a present. However, sniffing Xiao Dan gave him the chance to fill his nose with the vampire’s scent and make him laugh.

“I do,” Xiao Dan chuckled as he playfully fought to push Huli back. “But you might not like it because it’s not food.”

“I love all gifts from Zhang-ge.” Huli sat across from Xiao Dan with his chest out and his tails flicking wildly behind him. The vampire couldn’t expect him to be still when he was waiting to receive a gift.

He watched as Xiao Dan dug into a cloth pouch hanging from his waist. “I saw this in a shop a while ago and thought of you. I wanted to give it to you the moment I heard you achieved your fifth tail. It’s to celebrate all your hard work and to show you how much you mean to me.”

Huli gasped as the moonlight glided over the exquisite green jade pendant. It was intricately carved by what looked to be a master craftsman. Huli did not need to be human to understand the value of jade or that the pendant in Xiao Dan’s hands was worth a small fortune.

But what struck him the most was that Xiao Dan had seen this beautiful art and thought of him.

For the first time, he had an entirely new reason for wanting to be human. He wanted to hold the jade pendant, feel its smoothness with human fingers. He longed to press human lips to it and kiss this treasure Xiao Dan had given him.

“Do…do you like it?”

“I love it,” Huli breathed and meant it with every fiber of his being. “I love it almost as much as I love Zhang-ge.” He touched it with his paw but quickly withdrew it, not wanting to damage the jade with his claws.

“It’s on a ribbon,” Xiao Dan said, holding up the matching pale-green ribbon that ran through a hole at the top. “I can tie it around your neck so you can feel the weight on your fur.”

“Yes! Yes, do that!” He edged closer and lowered his head so Xiao Dan could place it about his neck. When the weight settled on him, he sighed to see the lovely jade against his white and orange fur. It was perfect.

Now he had a constant reminder of Xiao Dan’s love. He would learn to shift into a human, and one day, the pendant would hang from his belt, just like how the humans wore them.

Hell, he’d weasel up to Min again and convince her to teach him how to shift if he got stuck. Nothing was going to keep him from winning his vampire.

1 ? Shidi – junior disciple/brother